Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon

Infrastructures, Public Services, and Power

Bibliographic Data

ID20008752
AuthorsJoanne Randa Nucho (corresponding author)
Year2016
Pages192
Publication date2016-12-06
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueEveryday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPrinceton University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.23943/princeton/9780691168968.001.0001
OpenAlexW2793811824
Open LibraryOL28609750M
ISBN9780691168968
LanguageEN
Citations received64
References cited2

What causes violent conflicts around the Middle East? All too often, the answer is sectarianism—popularly viewed as a timeless and intractable force that leads religious groups to conflict. This book shows how wrong this perspective can be. Through in-depth research with local governments, NGOs, and political parties in Beirut, the book demonstrates how sectarianism is actually recalibrated on a daily basis through the provision of essential services and infrastructures, such as electricity, medical care, credit, and the planning of bridges and roads. In a working-class, predominantly Armenian suburb in northeast Beirut called Bourj Hammoud, the author conducted extensive interviews and observations in medical clinics, social service centers, shops, banking coops, and municipal offices, and explores how group and individual access to services depends on making claims to membership in the dominant sectarian community. The author examines how sectarianism is not just tied to ethnoreligious identity, but also class, gender, and geography. Life in Bourj Hammoud makes visible a broader pattern in which the relationships that develop while procuring basic needs become a way for people to see themselves as part of the greater public. Illustrating how sectarianism in Lebanon is not simply about religious identity, as is commonly thought, this book offers a new look at how everyday social exchanges define and redefine communities and conflicts

Aesthetics · Geography · Identity (music) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sectarianism · Sociology · Gender Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Civil society · Infrastructure (economics) · Lebanon · Municipal services · Political aspects · politics and government · Public welfare · Religion and civil society · Religious aspects

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